Sunday, 3 May 2015

#27 GET HARD

#27 GET HARD

Starring Will Ferrell, Kevin Hart, Craig T. Nelson and T.I.

Directed by Etan Cohen and written by, (although I was surprised cos I'd assumed it was just made up as they went along, still you live and learn.) FOUR PEOPLE! Sweet mother of god, FOUR people had a hand in the writing of this. Staggering. It took three of them to come up with the 'story', Adam McKay, Jay Martel and Ian Roberts. Then it took Jay Martel, Ian Roberts and Etan Cohen to turn that 'story' into the screenplay. I'm guessing by this stage Adam Mckay just couldn't take any more and left, so at least he still has a small shred of his integrity left.

And it's only 100 minutes long, which is odd because it actually feels longer than the 10 year Will Ferrell's James King is given as his prison sentence.

Anyway the story, for what it's worth. On the night of his engagement party - to the boss's daughter, Master of the Universe and Wolf of Wall St., James King, Will Ferrell - playing his usual man-child persona – is arrested for embezzlement, charged, convicted, sentenced to 10 years in San Quentin, and given 30 days to get his affairs in order. But guess what he's been framed. Terrified he's going to die in prison he reaches out to the only black man he knows, Kevin Hart's Darnell Lewis (who he assumes has been to prison) for help to 'get hard' for prison. There then follows a series of mediocre to middling jokes about rich people being out of touch, the working class, mexicans, African American culture before the glut of gay jokes about oral sex, erections and male rape are dropped into proceedings as Ferrell prepares for his ten-stretch by learning how to "keister"and secrete weapons up his arse. Finally it's the obligatory 3rd act where everything turns out okay and the baddies are revealed and King and Lewis become best buddies.

Lazy, humourless, pointless and generally very dull. A couple of laughs along the way and that's it. This one proves, hopefully, that once and for all, Will Ferrell was only ever funny as a supporting character and his singular trick of portraying perennial men-children has not only grown up, got married, had children, reached middle age, watched his kids leave home, retired, out-lived his wife then gotten rather old, before finally dying of very old age and being cremated before having his ashes scattered off a cliff.

I seriously think that the last time this man was funny was in Elf. And yell Ron Burgandy at me, that was a one trick pony that couldn't sustain a whole movie. Don't believe me? Try watching Anchor Man 2. And he's playing another man-child.